Marijuana: Three cannabis-related bills still alive with one day left for General Assembly

With the Colorado General Assembly's regular session slated to end tomorrow, three marijuana related bills are still floating around with the possibility of passing.

Below, we've put together a quick update about each piece of legislation and its status.

Senator Steve King's THC DUI proposal, SB 117, has been stalled for a few days, but it is back up before the House Appropriations Committee at 1:30 p.m. today at the Legislative Services Building, 200 East 14th Avenue. It's not on the official calendar, but we've received confirmation of the time and place from Capitol staff.

If the bill passes appropriations, it will likely go before the full House tomorrow for a vote. Rumors have been flying all weekend about the bill being killed behind closed doors. However, activitsts still say the bill could be passed by the end of business tomorrow.

Representative Beth McCann's HB 1358 is supposed to be before the Senate Health and Human Services committee today, although we haven't been able to get confirmation about a time or even if that session will definitely take place.

The bill would take nearly $10 million from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's medical marijuana patient registry to fund the struggling Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, youth violence and drug rehabilitation programs, as well as fast-track funding for a program to make the medical marijuana patient registry database accessible to police.

Though not even law yet, marijuana attorney Rob Correy has already announced that he is ready to sue on behalf of patients -- saying the CDPHE money needs to be refunded to patients who overpaid.

If passed today, the bill would have one last day to reach and pass the Senate. According to staff at McCann's office, the committees are meeting when there is time, and there was concern that McCann's bill would not be moved forward to the Senate floor before the session ends tomorrow.

If approved, the bill would create a ten-year program to study how industrial hemp cleans contaminated soil. The program would be limited in its scope, but McKinley said it could eventually lead to industrial hemp cultivation in the state. No word on what time HB 1099 will be read, however.